The Olympic men’s and women’s waterpolo tournaments are getting closer to their final stages. Here are the updates from my friend and expert Alessandro Arbocò.
Before leaving the stage to Alessandro’s words, I’d like to thank him for sharing his time and expertise with me and my Daily Pinner readers. Alessandro Arbocò, has already posted during the Rio2016 Olympinner, and here are his thoughts about the final stages of the men’s and women’s waterpolo tournament. Enjoy!
Crazy, crazy team Serbia!
The men’s waterpolo Olympic tournament is half way, and so far it’s been quite a crazy tournament. The teams have left the green-ish Maria Lenk’s pool (what an epic fail for Rio2016 Olympics!) to join the Aquatic Center, where swimming has just finished.
There are not surprises about the qualified eight teams to the quarter finals. However, some twists and turns have shuffled the matching teams. Serbia didn’t perform as everybody thought.
Out of five games played, in fact, two evens and one lost games are something that the Serbians have never done before in an Olympic tournament. We don’t know what caused such a weird performance of Serbia, though that’s made Serbia a time bomb.
The eight teams of the men’s Olympic waterpolo final stages
What happened to the Serbian affected all the other teams, as a direct consequence.
Italy and Croatia lost against USA and France during the last round, however the Americans and the French were already out of the quarter finals.
The Greek didn’t hustle too much against Australia – who needed to win and then hope to pass to the final stages – while Spain and Montenegro played fair to avoid players’ injuries.
Spain is going to play Serbia eventually, whilst Italy will play Greece. Hungary plays Montenegro, and Croatia is going to face the man who brought them to the Olympic gold medal at London 2012.
The time for calculations is over now, there’s only one aim – scoring one goal more than the opponents to reach the semi finals.
Women’s waterpolo Olympic tournament is on fire!
The women’s waterpolo Olympic tournament had no surprises like the men’s. The first phase of the tournament didn’t mean to eliminate any teams, while its goal was to define the combinations for the final stages and the quarter finals.
The pools look specular in the two rounds. There are also two teams – one per each pool – that stood out, looking stronger than the others; the US battleship in Group B, and the very determined Setterosa (Italy) in Group A.
They will play respectively Brazil and China in the quarter finals, but the most uncertain and interesting matches will be the other two games of the day: Russia vs Spain and Australia vs Hungary.
Even for the ladies, the fun is starting now.